He had written about it, lived it, and in the face of inevitable taboo and misunderstanding, talked to many about it as a columnist for a daily newspaper.

Yet when his father cryptically told him to visit a cemetery, he uncovered the fact that his great-great-grandmother, Lydia Winans, then 79, and her son, Frederick, 61, both died the same October day in 1928.

Scrolling through microfiche, Davis found a front page from the now-defunct Elizabeth Daily Journal in which the headline reporting his family's double-suicide loomed larger than one about the World Series: "WOMAN, SON, DOG, ARE FOUND DEAD OF GAS IN HOME."

As a reporter, the Point Pleasant native knew that single suicides weren't often covered, but that the deaths in his family were bound to be big news, even more than 80 years ago. He had spent five years writing a column called "Coping" for the Record newspaper in which he covered stories that related in some way to mental illness, including how people were coping with the fallout of Sept. 11. His work got the attention of former Gov. Richard Codey as well as former first lady Rosalynn Carter, who presides over the Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism. Davis was a Carter Center fellow from 2004 to 2005.

Now living in Metuchen with his wife and three children, he works as an editor for the online local news website Patch.com and is an adjunct journalism professor at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. Davis also frequently writes stories about mental health for the Huffington Post. Ask him about mental illness, and he'll openly talk about his treatment for eating disorders and self-destructive thinking.

Before then, even, Davis had plenty of experience with coping. His mother Dorothy's daily life was colored by what Davis calls a Howard Hughes-level of obsessive-compulsive disorder. "Dede" washed her hands constantly and brought wet wipes to restaurants. Davis remembers how the tall piles of wipes would often fall to the floor, an image that became his mother's calling card. She'd also seal cookie jars with electrical tape and fixate on going to the bathroom.

Davis often wondered about his mother's odd behaviors, but in a way, they were the norm for his family.

Tom DavisDavis' grandmother, grandfather and mother (left to right) standing in their Greystone house around Christmas, 1959.

"It was a certain curiosity, but it was like a closed-door curiosity," says Davis. So when he learned of more relatives who had struggled with mental illness, he knew his book wouldn't just focus on obsessive-compulsive disorder or depression, but also discovery.

"I've got to make this about the process of finding things out," Davis thought.

In "A Legacy of Madness," Davis also tells the story of his own reactions to his mother's particular habits, from his early recollections to her death in 2003, at the age of 65.

"Why do you repeat?" he asked her, at just 3 years old, in 1970. She had been fiddling around with the thermostat as he watched "Sesame Street." Davis later realized it was a phrase his father often said to his mother. Otherwise, his father didn't talk much about his mother's condition. That changed in 1998, after she had a bladder operation.

"My father, for the first time in his life, talked about it," says Davis. Now, he says his father is glad he's written his mother's story, even if he doesn't come across in the greatest light in its pages.

As an adult, Davis often oversaw the care of his mother in assisted living facilities, visiting with his children a few times per week.

"It became this long chain of, 'What do we do with her now?' " he said. "She found ways of brilliantly annoying people." His mother always wanted to go home. "Forever and ever," she'd say. It was her catchphrase: Tinkering with the thermostat as she often would unless it was hot outside, she'd turn it up to 80 degrees, peeving his father, who would finally consent to 75.

"Can we keep it at 75 forever and ever?" she'd ask.

Davis said his mother ended her life much like Howard Hughes -- overwhelmed by her own symptoms, driven to collapse by the level of control they demanded.

A keen awareness about his family's mental health has caused Davis to look for signs of abnormal behaviors in his children. When his first child was a baby, he saw some arm-flapping that made him suspicious, though it was dismissed by a doctor. For most of his life, Davis had no idea that there was a history of mental illness in his family dating back to the early 20th century. His grandfather actually worked as an administrator at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital. And as with his great-great-grandmother and her son, his great-grandfather also committed suicide by gas asphyxiation.

Davis didn't originally use the word "madness" in the title of his book, having called it "Generations," since the narrative tracks four generations of his family. But he now sees the value of employing such a loaded word; it commands attention. The book's publisher, Hazelden, also runs not-for-profit alcohol and drug addiction treatment centers.

Tom DavisTom Davis, right, with his brother, Ed, at their home in Point Pleasant.

"What he's doing is just tremendous in terms of coming out about mental illness and his family and being very specific about it," she says of Davis. "The thoroughness of the book, being able to put it into perspective as far as family history, is very important."

Because stigma surrounding mental illness was even more acute in past decades, many might know of a person in their family who was considered strange, or even creative, says Axelrod, but never understood as being affected by a disorder.

Davis recalls that after his mother -- who was never a fan of medication -- started taking the drug Luvox to help treat her obsessive-compulsive disorder, she began playing the piano, something he'd never seen her do before.

What would Dede, his mother, think of the book? Davis says he wouldn't have written it if she was still alive, not wanting to upset her in any way. But as much as she'd likely nag him about why he had to write it, Davis ultimately hopes that she'd see the story as he does, as her gift.

Tom Davis will sign copies of "A Legacy of Madness: Recovering My Family From Generations of Mental Illness" on Saturday at 2 p.m. at the Town Book Store, 270 E. Broad St. in Westfield. On Sunday at 2 p.m., he will be at Words Bookstore, 179 Maplewood Ave. in Maplewood. Visit legacyofmadness.com for more information.